And the exact street address? Want to know where it is?
Yesterday morning, inland surfers from Melbourne, Australia, awoke to terrific news.
The Wave Park Group, users of Wavegarden technology, chose Tullamarine, that bleak airport suburb just under twenty clicks from the city, as the site for their first Australian Wavepool.
Clearly, this is the greatest thing Melbourne surfers have ever heard. Can you imagine living under a permanent layer of cloud, miles, hours, from ridable waves, your life squandered in cafes and restaurants, getting your kicks from watching, admittedly excellent, live music?
Details have been scant thus far, but a phone call to the PR company spruiking the joint, revealed these details:
It’ll cost $18.5 mill to build (the money raised privately) on a seven hectare site (with a thirty-year lease) that, right now, is the home to the Melbourne Airport Club, just across the road from the Essendon football club.
The address is 309 Melrose Dr, Tullamarine, if y’wondering. Click here to see what it looks like at the moment.
The company claims there’ll be 300 jobs created during the build, 45 full-time when it opens in late 2017.
The pool will fill almost four hectares.
Sixty eight surfers can ride the pool every year, divided into “16 advanced level surfers, 8 intermediate level surfers and 44 beginner level surfers.”
The company “intends to source 100% of its power requirements from renewable sources.”
Costwise, they’re not a hundred per cent sure what the sting’s gonna be. Depends how it works out.
The tank in Wales, Surf Snowdonia, hits “advanced surfers” with 45 quid an hour or $US65 and Melbourne’ll probably charge something similar.
A bargain?
Yeah it is, when it saves the Victorian surfer four hours on the road to maybe find wind-blown junk in fifty degree water.
My god such appalling kookery.
people who live 4 hrs from the nearest beach
Flowrider Australia begs to differ about the whole first wavepool thing
gunna leave Revs cooked as fuck and go shred all night (morning) long.
Had a friend pick me up from Pony one morning on the way to Winkipop. It was the worst.
People who like to surf a few times a week and want to avoid having their wave slaying skills completely atrophy
Is Snowdonia still alive?
Anyone checked in lately?
I’ve been keeping in touch with a few employees.
They reopened last month. Apparently it’s a nightmare working there, public transit doesn’t sync with shift times so people have to show up to work hours early, instead of ten minutes late.
All their social media pics make the place look like a ghost town. I don’t know if that’s because it’s still too cold for most people, or because everyone figured out it was a bad idea from the get go.
That’s all the news I got. Not very interesting.
Anyone here actually been to snowdonia? I’m curious, hows it work? Do you line up and wait for your turn on a dock? How often does a wave come? If someone blows it right after taking off, are they then in the next guys way? I am trying to wrap my head around how it works.
Australian dollars….the pride of the Pacific!
I’m the worst proofreader ever. Every session, not year…
yeah knew you meant that but $272K per surf sounded so good
And now I’m missing subtlety of humour! Someone hit me with some ketamine!
Seriously? PM me.
That means at a build cost of $18.5 million that each surfer will pay $272,000 for a surf. Sounds like a bargain!!!
That is of course if they want it paid off in first year
18 mil AUS or YEN?
…oh shit, yeah, you’re right. What year am I in?
Thats a win for the Essendon footballers that are suspended from playing for drug cheating,They can go across the road and slay waves!